Prepare for a visit to AAMLO with these special topic resource guides.
This resource guide is intended to help users locate holdings at AAMLO related to African American labor history.
It highlights holdings in the following areas:
● Selected Library Material at AAMLO
● Selected Archival Collections at AAMLO
Other collections may contain relevant materials. Please contact AAMLO (aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org) with any questions or to schedule an appointment to view materials in person.
Selected Library Materials
Black Workers and the New Unions by Horace Roscoe Cayton
The Black Worker : the Negro and the Labor Movement by Sterling Denhard Spero
Marching Together : Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters by Melinda Chateauvert
What Price Alliance? Black Radicals Confront White Labor, 1918-1938 by Keith P. Griffler
Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle : Stories of Black Pullman Porters by Jack Santino
Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619-1981 by Philip Sheldon Foner
Dockworker Power : Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area by Peter Cole
Selected Archival Collections
Lester J. Bodin Papers. Lester J. Bodin was born in Alameda, California, on June 18, 1910, the eldest son of William and Ida Bodin. Bodin is listed in the 1940 census as a stock clerk for a canning company. He would later become president of the Cannery Workers Union. The Lester J. Bodin Papers include photographs, union membership cards, certificates, and yearbooks.
Louis J. Avelino Papers. The Louis J. Avelino Papers consist of photographs, ephemera, military medals, and documents related to Avelino’s participation in the International Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU). The ILWU file includes the constitution and by-laws of San Francisco Area Bay ILWU pensioners, a 1957 contract for dockworkers, and an untitled three-page manuscript documenting the experiences of longshoreman Len Greer and the San Francisco maritime strike of 1934.
Cottrell Laurence (C.L.) Dellums Papers. The C.L. Dellums papers provide insight into Dellums' career as a civil rights activist and labor leader. They encompass files he maintained as both the International Vice President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and as a member of the Fair Employment Practices Commission. Dellums' roles in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters at the local, national, and international levels are documented in papers relating to the Oakland district and various western divisions, files on national mediation procedures and agreements, and records relating to international conventions and affiliations. Several letters and memoranda written by A. Philip Randolph in the early thirties provide evidence of how he and Dellums worked together to formulate strategies for gaining recognition from the Pullman Company.
Jesse W. and Marcella Ford Papers. Jesse W. Ford series includes manuals, brochures, and correspondence related to his employment with the Pullman Company and as a member of the Union of Sleeping Car Porters.
Bryant Family Papers. James J. Bryant worked as a porter for the Pullman Company and was active with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Thorough his correspondence, employee records, and paystubs, the working life of a Pullman porter is uniquely documented.
Frances Albrier Papers. Social activist and labor organizer Frances Albrier (1898-1987) was born on September 21, 1898. After she was unable to find a nursing job in the Bay Area’s segregated hospitals, she took a position as a maid with the Pullman Company in 1926. Working as a union organizer on the Pullman trains, she became President of the Ladies Auxiliary, Dining Car Cooks, Waiters, and Bartenders Union, Local 456. During the 1940s, she continued to be active in a number of women's, civil rights, and union organizations while serving as a first aid instructor in the American Red Cross. In 1942, after her application to become a welder with the Boilermakers Union was denied, she garnered political pressure in the community forcing Kaiser Shipyards to hire her as the first Black woman welder in the company’s Richmond shipyards.
Harold Thaxter Lumsden Collection. Beginning in the 1930s, Lumsden (1899-1996) worked as a labor organizer for Union Local 261, unionizing workers at Hamilton Field in 1933 and shipyard workers at Bethlehem Shipyards in Alameda and Hunters Point Naval Shipyards in San Francisco, and as a business agent with Shipyard Laborers Local #886 during World War II. Following the war, he worked as laborer in the shipyards and was elected as Local 886’s union representative to the San Francisco Labor Council and the California Federation of Labor. Lumsden served on the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Labor Council and served as recording secretary of the Shipyard Laborers Local #886 until his retirement in 1983.
Lasartemay Family Papers. Includes a 1973 letter from Barry Silverman, Research Director of the International Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s Union, regarding African Americans in the ILWU.
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Vertical File Collection. Selected items include research on "The relationships of the San Francisco Bay area Negro-American worker with the labor unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations," by Fred Stripp, "Blacks in the ILWU : a struggle within a struggle," by Mary L. Tramil, letters from [-] Moffett [?] to Cora Brock re: Tresylian Brock regarding exclusion from machinist's union, Ida Quivers [?] membership and working card, International Glove Workers' Union of America, and material related to Northern California District Council of the International Longshoreman's & Warehousemen's Union elections.
Henry Williams Jr. Film Collection. Union protest rallies documented include the 1970 United Automobile Workers (U.A.W.) rally in Los Angeles, Calif., the 1969 Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (O.C.A.W.) rally in Martinez, Calif., and footage of the protest against the Farah Manufacturing Company between 1972-1974 in El Paso, Texas.
Ruth Beckford Papers. Includes oral history interviews with Tom W. Anderson of the Dining Car Cooks' and Waiters' Union Local 456, and Walter Thomas Jourdan, organizer of the Miscellaneous Workers Union, Inc.
George L. Newkirk Papers. Newkirk (1941-1993) was the Director of Labor Relations and Management Development at the San Francisco Municipal Railway. He served as a lead negotiator on the labor-management negotiating team and worked with the Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, and Transport Workers Union, Local 250, to solve labor issues.
Additional Information
Search the library using the catalog.
Consult AAMLO's finding aids in the Online Archive of California.
We are working to create new resource guides. Have an idea for a new guide? Contact us at aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org.
